Love as the foundation of Ubuntu

Abstract

Ubuntu is widely understood as a moral theory with a scope that is wide enough to explain what counts as the right kind of human behaviour as well as what it means to be a person. Understood in its basic form, Ubuntu is a relational theory about human interaction wherein its main focus could be argued to be a matter of living with raw awareness of the interdependence necessary among people – a kind of interdependence that enables communities to remain united. Herein I want to turn the attention to the metaethical analysis of Ubuntu, wherein I explore the possibility of love as a foundation for Ubuntu. What is interesting about Ubuntu in this metaethical sense is not the kind of behaviour it inspires in people, but the kind of virtue that sits at its very foundation.